Shards of a Memory
by FantasiaWandering
Summary: What if it had been Hamato Yoshi who died in the fire, and Tang Shen who moved to New York, bought the turtles, and encountered the Kraang in the alley on that fateful day? A series of ficlets and drabbles based on the AU idea that the turtles were raised by a mother, Master Shard.
1. Butterflies

_The idea of Tang Shen becoming Master Shard originated in the tumblr rp-verse. It began with a quick drabble in which Falling!Leo, under the influence of mysterious forces yet to be revealed, developed the ability to percevie and travel between the multiple realities in the tumblr-verse. This is what he found in one of them, and the idea would not get out of my head. So I created shardsoftangshen dot . This story is where I'm collecting the ficlets and drabbles that I come up with for her. It will contain a lot of Shard and baby turtles stories, more than likely._

* * *

**Butterflies**

Leo sat in lotus position in the dojo, calming his mind and reaching for the realities, trying to get a better sense of how they all fit together. He sifted slowly down through them, brushing his mental fingers across them, taking in the sense of them and trying to decipher what his rift-sense was telling him.

He paused as he came to one in particular, frowning. It felt incredibly familiar, and yet there was something very different about it. But as hard as he probed, he could sense no malice in it, and the subtle difference was nagging at him. Surely it couldn't hurt just to take a quick look…. He grabbed that reality and pulled it into alignment, keeping firm hold of it just in case he needed to escape quickly.

He opened his eyes slowly, and looked around. Everything looked normal so far. The dojo was as it always was, with its familiar carpets and the tree that Leo had watched grow as he and his brothers did, nurtured by Splinter's care and the faint light from the grate up above.

He continued to move, though his brow was beginning to furrow. The weapons were still here, but their layout on the walls was different. He continued to the shrine, where he paused. The family portait was the same, but only some of the ornaments of the shelves were familiar. He looked back across the dojo. The entire _sense _of the lair was different. It was… it was…

_Yin_.

"Leonardo?"

A voice, strong and feminine, spoke from the depths of Splinter's room. Leo's eyes widened as a figure emerged from the shadows, staring at him with concerned curiosity.

She wore a_ houmongi_ of dark navy blue, patterned with pale geen willow leaves, and a richly brocaded obi secured the relatively simple kimono at her waist. A black plume of a tail twitched beneath the hem of the kimono as she stepped forward, and the black-and-white feline face regarding him grew dark with concern. Her green eyes searched his, but though the colour was distinctly catlike, he knew the shape of those eyes. He had seen them looking out of the family portrait every day of his life.

But they weren't Hamato Yoshi's eyes.

"Mother?" he breathed.

She reached a clawed hand toward him. "What is wrong, my son?"

The gentleness underlying the concern was what broke his concentration. With a gasp, he released the realities he had been holding in place, and Tang Shen vanished. Leo found himself standing, alone, in the empty dojo of the reality he called home on this side of the rift.


	2. Shard's Biography

**A Brief Biography of master Shard**

Tang Shen was born in China, but after losing her parents in a car accident, she was adopted by her father's dear friend, a ninja master in the foot clan. She lived in his school high in the mountains, and trained hard under him to become a master of ninjutsu like her father. Eventually, she met and married another student of her _sensei'_s, a man by the name of Hamato Yoshi.

But all was not well in her marriage, for Yoshi's friend and comrade Oroku Saki loved her as well. Enraged by what he viewed as a betrayal, he attacked her beloved husband, who perished in the resultant fire along with Shen's baby daughter, Miwa (or so she believes). Afraid of what Saki would do if he discovered Shen was still alive, she let everyone believe that she had died with the rest of her family, and fled to New York to begin a new life. But though she tried her best, she was often lonely, and decided that a pet might help brighten her empty nights. Since Yoshi had had a fondness for turtles, the four baby turtles in the pet store window she had been passing by had been too much to resist.

Following her purchase, Shen spotted a little black-and-white cat loitering around the pet shop in search of treats. Charmed, she followed it into the alley to pet it, narrowly avoiding contact with a rat along the way. But as she raised her head after petting the charming little cat, she spotted the strange men at the end of the alley. And they spotted her as well.

Shen was victorious in the resultant fight, but the battle broke not only the bowl holding her little turtles, but the strange canister the men had been holding, and all Shen was aware of then was pain. Somehow, she managed to escape into the sewers with her turtles, but when the haze of pain cleared, she was no longer herself. She was a mutant, neither human, nor cat, and her baby turtles had similarly changed, to her utter horror.

It was then that she took the name "Shard", viewing the mutation as the shattering of the last of her dreams, and she was now only the shard of a memory. Out of a last remaining sense of honour, she could not leave the turtles to die, but her life was a fog of misery until, one day, as she lay shivering in a damp sewer tunnel, one of the turtles approached her and laid its little hand on her cheek.

Then, it opened its mouth, and spoke. "Kaa-san."

Shard named that one Leonardo.

It was then that she realized that the mutation was not an end, but merely the beginning of a new dream. She gathered her babies to her, and made a new home for them in an abandoned subway station, training them in the art of ninjutsu so that they could defend themselves if the world ever turned against them.

And though life was hard sometimes, and they had little, their home was a place of laughter, and love, and joy.


	3. Happy Baby

**Happy Baby**

The house was dark, shadows shifting in the light of the lone candle as Shard drifted silently throughout the room. Her feline eyes wide in the darkness, she searched the gloom for the prey that eluded her.

Then, from the darkness, came a quiet giggle.

Shard grinned, her claws crooked in front of her. "I heeeear you," she crooned. The giggle sounded again, a little closer now, and a little three-year-old face peeped out from behind the kitchen curtain, blue eyes shining with laughter, before vanishing again.

"I seeeee you…" Reaching out, she yanked the curtain aside, ready to pounce.

But the kitchen was empty.

Shard planted her hands on her hips, glaring about ferociously. "No, no, no, that will never do. No vanishing babies allowed in _this_ house." A tiny snicker floated from above as she stalked on silent paws around the kitchen. "So that means he muuuust beeeee… RRRAGH!"

She pounced, grabbing the tiny turtle from his perch on top of the fridge, and he shrieked in glee, little arms and legs flailing as she spun him around. "I've caught you, Michelangelo! Who's my happy baby? Who's my happy baby?"

"I am!" he cried, and his arms went around her neck as she perched him on her hip, hugging him close.

"Yes, you are," she said, her tongue darting out and covering his face with cat kisses.

He was laughing so hard that he started to hiccup, his hands batting at her face. "Ewwww! Grooooss, Mummy!" But he gave her a look of sudden dismay when she stopped, and then buried his face in the soft fur of her chest. "I love you, _kaa-san_."

She gave the top of his head a final lick before resting her chin on it with a sigh. "I love you too, my happy baby."


	4. Clever Baby

Shard shivered in the dampness of the tunnels as she hurried through the darkness, her hands clasped tight around the little bag bearing the precious finds she was bringing home. She had never been particularly fond of rainy days, though she could appreciate them for their quiet beauty. But since her mutation, she could state unequivocally that she absolutely _hated_ rain.

But the salvage run was a necessary evil if she was to keep her little ones fed and in good comfort. True, she had her few contacts from her life before the mutation, contacted now only through letters and arranged drops, but she preferred to keep those in reserve, saved for emergencies. Which left scavenging through dumpsters and junkyards as her primary means of providing for her family.

She sighed, leaving the dripping sewer tunnels and entering the equally wet subway tunnels that marked her way home. It was not a glamorous life. But she did it for her children.

Her pace quickened a little. She disliked leaving them at home on their own – they were only six, and still so little – but it was better than the alternative of bringing them to the surface and all the dangers it held. She was never gone long, and Leonardo had a sense of responsibility far greater than his physical years. He and his brothers would be fine.

Finally reaching her destination, Shard let out a sigh of relief as she moved through the house, passing through the dojo to her room and shedding the plain robe she wore on these excursions, now sodden and dripping. Her fur was a wet, clinging mess; it would need to be dried and brushed out before she made any further attempts at clothing herself. In a rare mood of self-pity, she moved toward her record player, the one luxury she allowed herself from her scavenged discoveries, wanting nothing more than to let its music soothe her foul mood away.

She froze halfway to it, scare able to believe what she was seeing.

The record player lay in pieces, scattered across the table where she kept it, her record of Japanese lullabies lying discarded nearby. Every single component of the machine lay neatly and methodically dismantleda, her little machine utterly eviscerated by thorough, meticulous hands.

"_Boys!"_ she roared, storming toward the entrance to the dojo.

Only to be met by silence.

Instantly, the record player was forgotten. No matter how much trouble they were in, the children _never_ failed to come when called. Clad in only her dripping fur, Shard raced from her room, casting desperately about for her babies. She skidded to a halt in the doorway to Leonardo's room, her breath coming in ragged gasps, only to see three of her babies huddled on Leonardo's bed.

"What happened?"

Leonardo looked up at her, Michelangelo held tightly in his arms. "Mikey found Donnie in your room. He tried to tease him about being in trouble for going in there but Donnie screamed at him and pushed him down." He glanced at Raphael, seated behind his brothers on the bed, who glowered darkly but remained silent. "_Sensei,_ I think he might have run away."

Shard's expression darkened. "Leonardo, take your brother. Search the lower tunnels." She approached the bed, picking Michelangelo out of Leonardo's arms and turning her youngest's tear-stained face toward her. "Michelangelo, precious, I need you to wait here in case your brother comes home. Can you do that for _Kaasan_?"

He looked up at her and nodded. "Good boy," she said, licking him on the top of his head, and it was a sure sign of his distress that he didn't even offer a token protest. She carried him out to the common area, Leonardo and Raphael trailing behind them, and Shard noted with a start of surprise that she hadn't even had to specify _which_ brother Leonardo was to take with him.

Setting Michelangelo down on the couch, she cupped his little cheek in her hand. "_Kaasan _and your brothers will be back soon, all right? I am trusting you to watch over the house for us."

Michelangelo nodded solemnly. "_Hai, Sensei_."

Resting a hand on his head, she turned to her two eldest and nodded. With the slightest hint of a nod in response, Leonardo vanished into the tunnels with Raphael on his heels, Shard moving right behind them. As the brothers broke off to search the lower levels of the tunnels, Shard returned to the sewers on the upper levels, every sense she had on alert, searching for her missing baby. Her dismantled record player. Donatello hurting Michelangelo. It all made a twisted sort of sense. She only hoped she would be able to set things right before it was too late.

She wasn't sure how much time passed; it might have been minutes, though it felt like hours. But as she passed by the opening to a storm drain, she heard it. The faintest muffled little cry. She slowed, sniffing the air, and there, above the filth of the sewer, was the scent of her little one.

"Donatello?" she said quietly.

A frightened whimper was her only response. She leaned into the mouth of the storm drain, searching the darkness within with her feline vision. She could barely make him out at the far end of the drain.

"Donatello, please will you come out? You have frightened your family very badly." There was a small shifting in the huddled shadow, and she held out her hand. "I will not be angry. Come here, my son."

Another moment of watery silence, and Donatello crawled slowly into view, covered in filth, tears pouring down his little face. With a small cry of dismay, Shard scooped him into her arms, cuddling him close to her chest.

"Oh, my little one. _Why_ would you run away?"

"I'm sorry,_ Sensei_," he whispered into her fur. "I'm so sorry."

Shard sighed, bouncing him gently, and began the trek back to their home. "Donatello, I will not lie. I am disappointed about the record player. But it is a machine. It can be replaced." She held him up in front of her, looking deep into his eyes. "I _cannot_ replace you. You must promise never to leave us like that again."

His lip trembled. "_Hai, Sensei_," he said, in a quavering voice. "I promise." His voice broke on the last word, and he began sobbing. Shaking her head, she pulled him close to her again, cradling him against her chest.

She took the long way home, through the lower tunnels, and breathed a small sigh of relief when the two little shadows fell in at her heels. She stroked Donatello's shell as she walked, rubbing little circles as she willed him to calm. With a glance down at Leonardo, she jerked her head in the direction of home. Her eldest nodded at her, taking Raphael by the hand and darting ahead to prepare Michelangelo and see that he was all right.

When she finally arrived back home with her second-youngest, it was to find the other three in the kitchen brewing tea. Leonardo and Raphael were clean enough, but she would have to do something about herself and Donatello. She carried him to the little utility room off the station, which had once been an emergency shower station for the subway workers and stepped into it, baby and all. It took the last of their precious supply of soap to scrub her baby and herself clean, but by the time she had done so, a towel and a blanket had thoughtfully materialized on the shower door. Silently thanking Leonardo, she bundled Donatello into the towel before wrapping the blanket around them both.

The tea was waiting for them in the kitchen, and she barely caught a glimpse of Leonardo ushering the two others out. With a fond smile at the disappearing turtles, she sat herself on the table and pulled him into her lap. Holding the steaming cup of fragrant tea to him, she waited for him to take a sip before taking one of her own, feeling the tea spread its healing warmth throughout her core. At last, Donatello's shivering stopped, and Shard rested her head against his.

"Now, my little one," she said gently. "Will you talk to me?"

He sniffled again, and turned his gaze up to her. "I just wanted to see how it worked," he whispered. "That's all. It sounded so pretty, I wanted to see how it worked. But then—" His voice trembled again, and he swallowed. "I _tried_ to put it back together, _Kaasan_. I really did! But I couldn't… I couldn't…."

"Hush, little one," Shard said gently. "I know you tried. I know you did not mean to hurt anything. But Donatello…" She gave him another sip of tea, and then stroked his cheek softly. "I wish you had come to me and asked." Setting the tea down, she wrapped her arms around him. "I would have brought you something a little less precious to dismantle."

He looked up at her, his brown eyes wide. "You would?"

She smiled, and licked his upturned face. "Of course I would." Rocking him gently, she sighed a little. "In the morning, we shall take a look at it together, hmmm? Would that suit you?"

"Oh," he breathed. "Oh, yes, _Kaasan_."

She smiled. "Very well. But first, I think a night of sleep is in order."

He hesitated a moment before he wriggled a hand out of the towel to rest against hers. "Can I stay with you tonight?"

"Of course you may," she answered.

In the end, though, Donatello was not alone. It was Michelangelo who crept into her room first and silently began to help Donatello brush the mats out of her fur. Leonardo and Raphael were not far behind, however, and the end of the night found all four of her babies piled together on her bed, with Shard curled around them, purring softly. As her children began the quiet snores that told her they had reached deep slumber, she resolved to put things right in the morning.

* * *

But putting things right would be harder than Shard anticipated. Though she and Donatello worked for hours, they could not reassemble the record player. Her disappointment was great – many long days had passed to the sounds of the recording of Japanese lullabies she had found as she nursed her colicky babies through their childhood illnesses. She would miss the joy that music provided more than she could express. But she did not let her disappointment show as she knelt next to her son, rubbing gentle circles on his shell as he fought back his tears.

"It is all right, Donatello," she said. "You tried your best."

"It's _not_ all right," he protested. "I made you sad."

Shard just gathered him into her arms, holding him tightly. "Come with me, my son." Not giving him a choice, she carried him to her futon, where the forgotten satchel from the night before lay. She set him down on the mattress and reached for the bag, pulling it open to reveal the prize within.

In addition to food and batteries, two of their most basic necessities, she had found something for her second-youngest son in particular. She watched his eyes go wide as he took the book she offered him, brushing his fingers over the waterlogged title.

INTRODUCTION TO UNIVERSITY PHYSICS

"For me?" he whispered?

Shard nodded. "If you do not possess the knowledge to fix our little problem now," she said, gesturing to the dismantled record player. "Perhaps it is time that you learned it."

Donatello's eyes began to water. Setting the textbook reverently aside, he leaped up and threw his arms around her neck, burying his head against her. "Thank you, _Kaasan_."

She stroked the back of his head, her other arm holding him to her. "You are welcome, my son."

* * *

As she watched Donatello over the next several days, Shard could not help the pang of guilt that spread through her. She had diligently worked to keep her babies fed and warm over the years, but she had neglected one very important aspect. Donatello's mind had been starving. As she watched him work his way through the textbook, ravenous for each successive chapter, she could not believe that she could ever have missed his thirst for knowledge that the textbook only just began to address. Every so often, she could expect to hear another outburst of "did you know sound is actually waves travelling through air particles, _Kaasan?" _ or "did you know that the lines in your record are just one big spiral?" And she welcomed them, glad to foster the burning desire for learning that she had been sorely neglecting.

But even as she acknowledged this, she still was not prepared for the moment he came to her and asked, "if I could create a sound wave that was 180 degrees out of phase with an original sound, would that make it sound like there wasn't any sound at all?"

She stared at him, bemused, before laying a hand on his head. "I do not know, my son," she said gently. "Why don't you go check your book?"

He looked at her for a long moment, his eyes wide, before he toddled off to do so, and Shard watched him go with an ache in her heart. Oh, she had known Donatello's mind was special. But she'd had no idea of the depth of intellect that lurked beneath the unassuming exterior. Small wonder he grew frustrated so easily with his brothers, if his mind was operating at the speed she suspected.

Her baby boy was a genius. And he was stuck living beneath the streets of a city that would cast him out, trying to make do with scraps that the city threw away.

Shard redoubled her efforts on her scavenging runs, bringing back as many books and instruction manuals as she could find, old electronics for him to disassemble, and in a rare exchange with her network, several new textbooks as well. And as he voraciously devoured each new offering in the weeks that followed, she could not help watching him with a pang of sorrow.

It was not easy for a parent when their child finally surpassed them. She had not thought it would happen with any of her sons at the age of six. And yet, the concepts Donatello was doodling on the papers she brought him and on the walls when he ran out of that were far beyond her ability to comprehend.

She felt… unnecessary.

* * *

It was another night much like the first that found Shard dragging herself home through the tunnels, weary and exhausted, but with enough scavenged food to get them through the next few days. She was exhausted, and all she wanted to do was rest and meditate to her music. And felt another pang of regret at the loss of the record player that had gotten her through so many difficult nights.

But when she pushed her way through the turnstiles, she was greeted not by the enthusiastic faces of her sons, but by the strains of a Japanese lullaby weaving through their underground home. Her eyes wide with disbelief, she followed it to the dojo, where Leonardo sat with Raphael and Michelangelo beneath the tree, listening with rapt attention.

Donatello sat in the doorway to her room, his face turned within, listening to the record she had used to lull them to sleep so many times. He turned to her, a beatific smile on his face, and said, "_Kaasan, _I did it."

Shard was a cross the room in two steps, scooping him into her arms and covering his face with feline kisses as he giggled and feigned a protest. "So you did," she said, snuggling him close to her. "So you did, my Clever Baby."

She held out one arm, and the other three children bolted across the room, piling into her embrace. And as she held all four of them close, listening to the sweet strains of the lullaby, she reflected that perhaps it was not such a bad thing for a child to outshine his mother. Rather, it was the most perfect gift she had ever received.


	5. Truths

_I had to write this after the finale, to explore how it would have gone down with Shard. I enjoy the idea of Catmum royally kicking butt. I also have this idea that she's got pretty fierce claws and knows how to use them._

* * *

**Truths**

It was still there.

Her steps silent, she entered the deep cavern where the gnarled stump sat, a withered reminder of a time when this tunnel had been exposed to the light. Fifteen years ago, there had still been traces of green on it. It was from those shoots that she had cultivate the tree that now grew in her home. But now it was withered. Lifeless.

Slowly, she stripped out of her obi and kimono until she stood in her juban, and stared down at the wraps on her hands. She had scrubbed well when she had returned home, but she could still feel the blood beneath her claws, and so she had slipped away from the victory celebration, seeking a channel for the torrent of emotion within her.

* * *

_"Why must you persist in this insanity?" _

_"Because you let Hamato Yoshi take you from me! And then I bear the double humiliation to find you would pretend to be dead rather than be with me once he was gone!"_

_Her lip had curled back in a snarl as she tugged her blade free. Even his words felt like a violation. "I was never yours!"_

* * *

Slowly, she began to move through the forms, attempting to clear her mind. Clean, precise, she struck at the withered trunk as the scene played over and over in her head. She had worn the dark abaya she used for scavenging runs, which at the very least gave her more freedom of movement and was far less conspicuous, and it had hidden her. Mostly. But when she had cast aside her headscarf and he had seen what lay beneath and called her hideous. And _still_he persisted.

Her breath quickening, her strikes became looser, blunter, angrier as she faced her memories yet again.

* * *

_"If you defeat me, you will have nothing!"_

_She had meant it. But his laughter then had chilled her. She had never heard anything like it from him. Not when he had called her friend and she had cared for him as a brother. It was a laugh filled with hate. And with vile secrets._

_"Yoshi took something from me. As you then took my pride. So I took something from you both."_

* * *

A ragged breath burst from her as she struck, over and over. Her claws had come out then. That was the worst of it. For in that moment, there had been hope. He had taken Miwa, but she was alive. As long as there was that hope, she could defeat him. She could find her child and put her family back together as it always should have been.

Foolish, blind hope. But then, she had always looked for the bright side of things. How was she to know?

She should have known. The Shredder specialized in taking the light from her life. Yoshi. Miwa. April.

The forms were long gone now. Low, gutteral growls tore from her throat as she clawed at the gnarled wood and it broke into splinters beneath her talons. As the Shredder's armour had torn beneath them. As his flesh beneath that. Until a sword had barred her way.

* * *

_"That cat is Tang Shen!"_

_Fool that she was, she had a brief moment of joy as the truth hung like a shining star between them._

Yes, my beloved child, your mother is here!

_But only seconds later the joy was extinguished as Miwa… as _Karai_… rounded on her with undisguised loathing._

_"Father told me what you did! You let us think that Hamato Yoshi was the traitor all these years, but it was you! You would have killed me and my father so that you could be with Hamato_, _rather than have me live to know your shame." The child's eyes — familiar, beloved eyes — narrowed as she braced for the killing stroke._

_"Well, now I return the favour."_

* * *

Her daughter, her precious one, the light of her life, tried to kill her. The web of lies Saki had woven lay so thick around her that Shard knew no words she spoke could have reached her baby girl. And so she had fled, like the coward Miwa branded her, rather than have any more of her blood stain the child's blade. For now that she knew the truth, Shard could not raise a hand against her.

Sagging to her knees, she looked at the devastation she had wrought. The hapless tree stump lay shattered and in pieces, but the horrible, screaming rage within her was spent. She could return now, to the smiling faces of her children, radiant in their celebration. She could resurme the mask of their serene Sensei, and keep this terrible truth inside until she could figure out a solution.

And there would be a solution. Now that she knew her daughter was alive, there was no power on this earth that would keep her from trying to get her back.


End file.
